At a glance
Life abroad can wear you out in a way that a long sleep never quite reaches. The effort goes into things that once ran on autopilot: the language, the unspoken rules, guessing what people expect of you. This article shows where that energy is going, why rest on its own seldom brings it back, and which changes make a difference.
Clinical insights from 22 years in psychotherapy
I’m Mark Colclough, MA, psychotherapist in Copenhagen. Qualified at the Psychosynthesis Education Trust and the University of East London. 22 years of full-time, face-to-face clinical practice.
- The heaviness often comes later. Many clients describe a first year abroad that felt exciting and a second that felt strangely leaden, though nothing obvious had changed.
- It is patchy, not total. People tell me they can manage a full day at work and then cannot bring themselves to accept an invitation that same evening.
- It gets taken personally. Clients often assume everyone around them is coping effortlessly, so the tiredness becomes evidence against themselves.
Clinical notes: My observations are anonymised and compounded from my session notes since 2004.
Why am I so drained when nothing here is actually hard?
The exhaustion is not coming from hardship but from a kind of effort that never fully switches off. Described aloud, your life sounds fine. The home is comfortable, the job is manageable, people are courteous. None of that explains why you walk in at six with nothing left, or why one message you need to answer can sit for days.
What the description leaves out is the constant calculating beneath it. Back home you knew without thinking how warmly to greet someone, when silence meant yes, how much to share over lunch with colleagues. Now each of those is a small conscious choice, made many times a day. One costs almost nothing. Together they swallow most of your afternoon. You are not in pain and not in crisis, and still the energy you had a year ago is missing. Because there is no clear cause, it is hard to take seriously, in yourself or in front of anyone else.
Where is all my energy going?
Mostly into interpreting. Much of what wears people down abroad is having to read situations that used to read themselves.
- Language. Even if your English is strong, working all day in a shared second language and switching between languages takes something out of you. By evening, many people notice the words come more slowly.
- Reading people. Was that colleague being warm or simply correct? Was the invitation real or polite? Did your tone land the way you meant it?
- Paperwork and systems. Things you cannot handle on instinct, where a quick errand swallows half a day and guessing wrong can cost you.
- Introducing yourself. Starting from nothing, over and over, with people who never knew the earlier you.
None of this is dramatic, and that is exactly the point. It is the sheer number of tiny translations, and how rarely you get to put them down.
Why is it getting heavier instead of easier?
Novelty carries effort well in the early months, and when the novelty fades the effort remains. At first everything is new, and new things are interesting. Worn out by evening, you can still feel quietly proud.
What usually shifts, often in the second year, is not how much effort you are making but that the effort has stopped being interesting. Familiar exchanges, familiar corrections, the familiar story of where you come from, without the freshness that made them bearable. By then you expect yourself to have settled, and that expectation does real harm, because it turns an ordinary adjustment into a judgement on you.
A review of studies on international students found a moderate link between the strain of adapting to a new culture and lower mood1. Most of those studies measured both at one moment, so they show the two going together rather than one causing the other. What I notice in my work is more particular: the tiredness itself is bearable, and the private verdict that you ought to be past this already is what really hurts.
Why does a holiday not fix it?
What is running low is not sleep but the experience of being known without having to explain yourself. You go home for a couple of weeks. You sleep, see old friends, are understood in half sentences, and come back lighter. Within a fortnight the weight returns, and now you also feel discouraged because the obvious remedy did not hold.
Sleep repairs the body, but it cannot hand you back the feeling of being at home among people who know you. This may be why isolation weighs so heavily. In a study of 207 adults who had moved abroad with a partner, how stressed people felt was the strongest single predictor of their wellbeing, with isolation next2. Over 9 in 10 participants were women and most came from Western countries, so the picture is partial. The everyday version is simpler: being tired can be borne, but being tired with nobody nearby who already knows you is far heavier to carry.
What helps, and when is that not enough?
Instead of trying to reduce the effort, guard the places in your life where no effort is needed. Many people tackle this from the wrong side, by pushing themselves to fit in faster.
- Call it what it is. Seeing it as tiredness from constant translating, not laziness or failure to adapt, changes how kindly you treat yourself once the evening comes.
- Keep one relationship where you are off duty. One person, near or far, with whom you neither perform nor explain. That matters more than how many people you know.
- Guard the first hour once work ends. Keep it free of chores and language drills, for something that asks nothing of you.
- Expect it to come and go. A rough week following a good stretch is no relapse, and reading it as one piles fresh discouragement on top.
These ideas are not enough in some situations. If the dullness now covers things that never took effort, if old wishes have gone quiet, or if weeks of poor sleep and dread on waking have set in, you are looking at something other than tiredness, and it deserves proper attention rather than a better routine. Likewise if what drains you is really a relationship, or a choice you keep postponing, because then rest is not the question. I cannot tell from an article whether you are going through a normal settling-in that will lift, or something that has gradually become weightier. From the inside they feel alike, and working out which one it is tends to be the first useful step.
Questions people ask
Is tiredness a good enough reason to start therapy?
Yes, it is among the most frequent reasons people contact me. Unexplained tiredness usually has a pattern, and uncovering it is everyday therapy work, not a crisis.
Will we have to go back to my childhood?
Only if it turns out to matter for what is draining you now. For some people the drain abroad has deep roots and for others it belongs wholly to the present, and we follow what we find.
Can I do this by video from where I live?
Yes, sessions are by video, in English, wherever you are. We agree a regular time in Copenhagen time that you can keep.
How many sessions will it take?
I cannot honestly give you a number, and I would be cautious of anyone who does. Most people have a much clearer sense of what is draining them well before the work ends.
What if I am unsure therapy is what I need?
Tell me, and a first conversation can help you decide. A free 30-minute call is meant for that, and choosing not to go ahead is fine.
If life abroad looks fine on paper but leaves you worn out, online psychotherapy can help you trace what is using up your energy.
Sources
- Soufi Amlashi, Majzoobi and Forstmeier. The relationship between acculturative stress and psychological outcomes in international students: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Frontiers in Psychology, 2024.
- Herrmann Aegerter, Meyer, Gaab and Ooi. Expatriation stressors and the well-being of accompanying partners: a commonality analysis approach. 207 participants. Frontiers in Psychology, 2025.
How this article was written: I choose the subject and the angle. An AI assistant researches and drafts. I read the draft, correct and improve it and stand behind every clinical statement. The professional and clinical judgement is mine.
